On duty, 24/7

On duty, 24/7 By Cory Franklin May 30, 2012 At a restaurant, you and your spouse notice the man at the next table has been drinking excessively and acting obnoxiously. You recognize him as the plumber scheduled to fix your kitchen sink tomorrow afternoon. In all likelihood, you dismiss the incident and welcome him the next day; after all, good plumbers are hard to find. But what if the man was the surgeon scheduled to operate on your child? You'd be more inclined to look for another surgeon. The point of that hypothetical is that when it comes to personal behavior and carriage, certain occupations are never "off the clock." People in some jobs must comport themselves in line with what they are paid to do — airline pilots, elementary school teachers, bank presidents, nurses. Implicit in their job descriptions is a modicum of "integrity" and "character." Which brings us to the Secret Service. In recent testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan denied that a culture of debauchery existed within the Secret Service. During President Barack Obama's diplomatic trip to Columbia last month, 12 agents allegedly visited strip clubs, drank to excess and brought women back to their hotel rooms. The agents did not appear to do much to conceal their behavior. Sullivan testified, "Between the alcohol — and I don't know, the environment, these individuals did some really dumb things. …The notion that this type of behavior is condoned or authorized is just absurd. … I just believe extremely — very strongly that this just is not part of our culture." Put simply, despite his contrition and his subsequent claim that no security breaches occurred during the incident, Sullivan should be fired. The misdeeds by themselves are sufficient. There is no excuse for off-duty Secret Service agents acting like frat boys. Questions about indiscretions and potentially reckless behavior by the Secret Service are nothing new. As far back as Nov. 22, 1963, Secret Service agents in Texas, including several in the presidential motorcade, were known to have been out drinking the night before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, although there is no suggestion that it played a part in the tragedy (imagine, though, the guilt some of those agents must have felt). During the Homeland Security Committee hearings last week, Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut and chairman of the committee, reported several other instances of untoward behavior by the Secret Service, including "partying with alcohol with underage females in their hotel rooms while on assignment at the 2002 Olympics." Lieberman was quick to point out, "We do not yet find evidence at all sufficient to justify a conclusion of a pattern of misconduct or a culture of misconduct." Such a qualified conclusion hardly exonerates the Secret Service director. The Secret Service is attempting to dismiss nine of the agents. According to The Washington Post, at least four are contesting the efforts to dismiss them, claiming they didn't break any rules. Some argue that as single men, they can behave as they please on personal time. Others insist their off-duty behavior falls under the category of "what happens on the road stays on the road." Legalities aside, if that is true, there is no excuse Sullivan can make for this dysfunctional environment. It may have existed before his tenure, but he has obviously not done enough to change it. Essentially, the agents' elite status has them operating in a protective bubble, giving them an unwarranted sense of entitlement and self-governance. When any profession operates in an atmosphere with no accountability, inappropriate behavior is a natural consequence. For certain privileged professions, comporting oneself with decorum should not be viewed as a sacrifice. It isn't. It is a trade-off. The Secret Service (and many other professionals) get special treatment in areas such as hotels, airline seating, restaurants, etc. This is reasonable, but it should be understood they receive those things because of their occupation, not who they are as individuals. So, if they enjoy the perks, they must be willing to adopt the responsibilities that come with their jobs. Entitlements carry a price. That price is behaving in a dignified manner in public. If this means updated "morals clauses" in Secret Service contracts, with new rules concerning off-hours alcohol consumption and fraternization, then the agency must act accordingly. Obama defended the Secret Service, saying it shouldn't be discredited by a few "knuckleheads." He is understandably bound to defend the agency sworn to protect him. However, like Sullivan, the president may not appreciate the full import of this situation. It is not simply a matter of appearances, but of substance also. One person who understood the gravity better was 24-year-old Dania Londono Suarez, the Colombian prostitute involved in the incident. She went on television and said the agents "left their duty behind." She explained that she had access to one agent's documents, suitcase and wallet. "I don't know how Obama had them (the agents involved) in his security force." The Secret Service, like Caesar's wife, must be above suspicion at all times. That's why Secret Service Director Sullivan should be relieved of command.

The Party Animals at the Secret Circus

The Party Animals at the Secret Circus By MAUREEN DOWD Published: May 26, 2012 291 Comments WASHINGTON Related News Secret Service Chief Sees No ‘Systemic’ Problems (May 24, 2012) Times Topic: U.S. Secret ServiceReaders’ Comments Readers shared their thoughts on this article. Read All Comments (291) » THE Secret Circus, as the traveling Secret Service extravaganza is known, had come to town. And the pack of macho Secret Service agents were hitting the clubs, drinking and hanging out with comely young women in alluring outfits. That was half a century ago in Fort Worth at the Press Club and a joint called the Cellar, where the waitresses wore only underwear. The carousing started after midnight on Nov. 22, 1963, the day the agents were charged with keeping President Kennedy and Jackie safe in Dallas. Boys will be boys. And no one doubts that being an agent is a tough job. John Malkovich, playing an aspiring presidential assassin in “In the Line of Fire,” muses to Clint Eastwood’s Secret Service agent: “Watching the president, I couldn’t help wondering why a man like you would risk his life to save a man like that. You have such a strange job. I can’t decide if it’s heroic or absurd.” The heroism is captured in Robert Caro’s latest book on Lyndon Johnson, “The Passage of Power,” which vividly retells the story of the day J.F.K. was assassinated. Rufus Youngblood, the Secret Service agent in the vice president’s car, grabbed “Johnson’s right shoulder, yanked him roughly down toward the floor in the center of the car, as he almost leaped over the front seat, and threw his body over the vice president, shouting again, ‘Get down! Get down,’ ” Caro writes, adding that L.B.J. said he would never forget Youngblood’s “knees in my back and his elbows in my back.” The absurd was captured on Wednesday in a Senate hearing into Secret Service shenanigans, focused on the drinking and prostitution scandal in Cartagena last month, but also touching on an incident in 2008 when an on-duty uniformed agent was arrested for soliciting a D.C. police officer posing as a hooker, and an episode in 2002 when three to five agents were ordered home from the Salt Lake City Olympics for misconduct involving alcohol and under-age girls in their hotel rooms. As The Washington Post reported, noting that some Secret Service employees call the road show “the Secret Circus,” one 29-year-old agent who was forced to resign after the Cartagena meshugas is protesting that he did not know the two women he brought to his room were prostitutes. Like Dudley Moore in “Arthur,” he just thought he was doing great with them. Mark Sullivan, the Secret Service director, came across like a credulous Boy Scout under rigorous questioning from Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking Republican on the homeland security panel. He said he was sure, given that the Secret Service had 200 people in Colombia and only 12 bad apples, that someone on his team would have reported the misconduct — even if Arthur Huntington, the cheapskate cheating agent, hadn’t started a ruckus by handing his hooker $28 for a night worth $800. Collins reminded Sullivan that he had told the panel about a survey of personnel in the Secret Service — a muscular fraternity that indulges a wheels-up, rings-off swagger — showing that only about 58 percent would report ethical misconduct. “I came away with a sense of disbelief that Mr. Sullivan is still maintaining that this was an isolated event,” she told me. “I think he’s an extraordinarily honorable person who is so blindly devoted to the Secret Service that he just cannot conceive of agents’ acting in a way that he would personally never act. “It’s going to make it difficult for him to truly solve the problem if he can’t admit that there was a problem.” Collins professed a special fondness for law enforcement officers. “But most of the ones I know who have had 29 years of service have a less sanguine view of human nature,” she said. “That’s what Mark Sullivan totally lacks.” Dryly, she noted: “Thank goodness it was just prostitutes. They could have been spies planting equipment. They could have blackmailed or drugged agents. This is Colombia, for heaven’s sake.” Collins talked about the actions that led her to believe that the culture of the agency was warped. “The 12 agents didn’t go out on the town together in one group, where arguably some could have gotten swept away with what was going on,” she said. “They went in small groups but with the same end results. “And they made no effort whatsoever to conceal what they were doing. They were registered under their own names. The women registered under their own names. They didn’t go to an alternative place or to the women’s homes. They went back to the hotel where the other agents were staying, with no fear of ramifications if they were caught.” Pronouncing herself “astonished,” Collins said she would keep after Sullivan to treat the matter more seriously. “I hate to use the word naïve, but ...”

Clint Hill on C-SPAN 5/27/12 (recorded 5/3/12): mentions Vince Palamara (again)

see 47:03 I am honored that, for the second time on C-SPAN (2 for 2), CEO Brian Lamb and Clint Hill (last time, with Gerald Blaine included) talked about me. Clint Hill also mentions the JFK autopsy at some length, the burning of ALL of his notes in 2005 (the Summer I contacted him!), and, ironically, the 9 agents who partied on an Obama trip (Hill was one of 9 agents who partied the night before JFK was assassinated). So far, this was broadcast twice on 5/27/12 and once on 5/28/12 (Memorial Day) [JFK's birthday is 5/29/12] Vince Palamara

official C-SPAN video Clint Hill 5/27/12 (mentions Vince Palamara)

Senator: Prostitution scandal wider than believed

Senator: Prostitution scandal wider than believed By ALICIA A. CALDWELL and LAURIE KELLMAN | Associated Press – 9 hrs ago WASHINGTON (AP) — Several small groups of Secret Service employees separately visited clubs, bars and brothels in Colombia prior to a visit by President Barack Obama last month and engaged in reckless, "morally repugnant" behavior, Sen. Susan Collins says. She says the employees' actions during the stunning prostitution scandal could have provided a foreign intelligence service, drug cartels or other criminals with opportunities for blackmail or coercion that could have threatened the president's safety. In remarks prepared for the first congressional hearing on the matter Wednesday, Collins, R-Maine, also challenged early assurances that the scandal in Colombia appeared to be an isolated incident. She noted that two participants were Secret Service supervisors — one with 21 years of service and the other with 22 years — and both were married. Their involvement "surely sends a message to the rank and file that this kind of activity is tolerated on the road," Collins said. "This was not a one-time event," said Collins, the senior Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "The circumstances unfortunately suggest an issue of culture." Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the committee's chairman, said, "I want to hear what the Secret Service is doing to encourage people to report egregious behavior when they see it." Wednesday's hearing was expected to expose new details in the scandal, which became public after a dispute over payment between a Secret Service agent and a prostitute at a Cartagena hotel on April 12. The Secret Service was in the coastal resort for a Latin American summit before Obama's arrival. Collins said several small groups of agency employees from two hotels went out separately to clubs, bars and brothels and they "all ended up in similar circumstances." "Contrary to the conventional story line, this was not simply a single, organized group that went out for a night on the town together," Collins said. Senators were expected to focus on whether the Secret Service permitted a culture in which such behavior was tolerated. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has testified previously that she would be surprised if there were other examples, but senators have been skeptical. In his own prepared remarks, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told senators the behavior in Colombia wasn't representative of the agency's nearly 7,000 employees. "I can understand how the question could be asked," Sullivan said, calling his employees "among the most dedicated, hardest working, self-sacrificing employees within the federal government." Sullivan also assured senators that Obama's security was never at risk. The officers implicated in the prostitution scandal could not have inadvertently disclosed sensitive security details because their confidential briefing about Obama's trip had not taken place. "At the time the misconduct occurred, none of the individuals involved in the misconduct had received any specific protective information, sensitive security documents, firearms, radios or other security-related equipment in their hotel rooms," Sullivan said. Sullivan has survived professionally so far based on his openness about what happened. Senators were not expected to ask for his resignation, and the acting inspector general for the Homeland Security Department, Charles K. Edwards, gave Sullivan high marks for integrity. Edwards, who estimated that the early stages of his own investigation would be finished before July 2, said the Secret Service "has been completely transparent and cooperative." "The Secret Service's efforts to date in investigating its own employees should not be discounted," Edwards told senators. "It has done credible job of uncovering the facts and, where appropriate, it has taken swift and decisive action." The White House on Tuesday reasserted its confidence in Sullivan. Obama "has great faith in the Secret Service, believes the director has done an excellent job," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "The director moved very quickly to have this matter investigated and took action very quickly as a result of that investigation." A dozen Secret Service officers and supervisors and 12 other U.S. military personnel were implicated. Eight Secret Service employees, including the two supervisors, have lost their jobs. The Secret Service is moving to permanently revoke the security clearance for one other employee, and three others have been cleared of serious wrongdoing. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that four of the Secret Service employees have decided to fight their dismissals. Prostitution is legal in Colombia, but Sullivan quickly issued new guidelines that made it clear that agents on assignment overseas are subject to U.S. laws. Sullivan said he directed Secret Service inspectors to investigate reports of similar misconduct in San Salvador. After 28 interviews with hotel employees and managers, State Department officials and others, "no evidence was found to substantiate the allegations," Sullivan said. This week the Drug Enforcement Administration said the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General was investigating possible misconduct by two or more agents in Colombia. Collins revealed that the case involved at least two DEA employees who entertained female masseuses in the Cartagena apartment of one of the DEA agents. The investigation is unrelated to the Secret Service scandal but is based on information provided to the DEA by the Secret Service.

From Ferdinand to Kennedy, cars played key role in history’s notorious assassinations

From Ferdinand to Kennedy, cars played key role in history’s notorious assassinations May 11, 2012 10:05:00 Phil Marchand Special to the Star There it stands in the Henry Ford Museum, in Dearborn, Mich., the car that once conveyed a president and his wife down the main streets of Dallas on a brilliantly sunny day. Half a century later, the 1961 Lincoln Continental four-door convertible sedan seems pathetically vulnerable. The current presidential limo, U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2008 Cadillac, can withstand (we are told) a rocket-propelled grenade attack, poison gas, a landmine — virtually everything except a direct hit with a nuclear warhead. By contrast, John F. Kennedy’s Lincoln didn’t even have bulletproof doors, not to mention a permanent roof. As it turned out, the inadequately equipped 1961 Lincoln was not the only problem confronting Kennedy on his last day on Earth in 1963. His human shields did not rise to the occasion. The Secret Service chauffeur, William Greer, and bodyguard Roy Kellerman, also riding in the car, thought the first shot fired at the president, which — according to some accounts — missed, was a firecracker, and they failed to react immediately. As William Manchester, in his book Death of a President, writes, “Kellerman and Greer were in a position to take swift evasive action and for five terrible seconds they were immobilized.” In the curious 20th Century linkage between cars and assassination, two elements combine to determine the fate of the intended victim: a durable car and a skilled and cool-headed driver. It was this combination that saved the life of Charles de Gaulle in the 1962 assassination attempt mounted by the right-wing Secret Army Organization. A dozen men sprayed De Gaulle’s Citroen DS 19 with gunfire, killing two motorcycle guards, shattering the rear window and puncturing at least one tire. It was due to the Citroen’s superior steering and suspension that it could accelerate out of a front-wheel skid and speed away from the gunmen. That steering and suspension, however, would have been for naught had the chauffeur panicked on the occasion, lost control of the car, or failed generally to heed the first law of chauffeurs in assassination attempts: get the car and its passengers immediately out of the site of the shooting. Unfortunately for assassination victims, including John F. Kennedy, the opposite combination is often the case — a faulty or inadequate car and a hapless driver. Consider the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo. The royal couple was seated in a 1911 Graf & Stift touring car, with its top turned down, when its driver made a wrong turn and attempted to reverse direction. The result was the engine stalled and the gears locked. Immobilization of a car presents assassins with their greatest opportunity and it proved so in this case, when an assassin happened to be standing by. In some cases, of course, neither the car nor the driver can be blamed, as in the 1973 assassination of Luis Carrero Blanco, prime minister in Francisco Franco’s Spanish dictatorship. The prime minister’s Dodge 3700 was blown up as it drove over a remote-control bomb planted in the street. A more striking instance is the 1961 killing of Rafael Trujillo, then brutal dictator of the Dominican Republic — a rare instance of car-on-car assassination. A Spanish mechanic rebuilt the engines of three cars belonging to the conspirators so they could go over 125 miles per hour, enabling them to overtake Trujillo’s 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. On the night of the assassination, one car blocked the road ahead of Trujillo, while two followed behind him. As the Chevrolet Bel Air approached the roadblock, one of the two cars behind it drew alongside and opened fire. (The other car behind Trujillo, perhaps because its occupants lost their nerve, turned around and sped back to the city.) At this point, Trujillo’s driver suggested doing a U-turn and accelerating out of the trap, but the wounded dictator insisted on getting out of the car and fighting it out, a fatal mistake. His chauffeur, a doughty fellow worthy of a far better employer, was hit several times as he engaged in the firefight, but miraculously survived. Several assassins were wounded. Trujillo was killed. A similar incident happened in 1922 in Ireland when Michael Collins, travelling in a convoy as Commander-in-Chief of Ireland’s National Army, was attacked in a deadly roadside ambush. At the onset of gunfire, Collins’ aide told the driver to “drive like hell” — again, the correct move from a security point of view, and one that would likely have saved the life of the commander. But Collins, perhaps spurred by a feeling he was not going to flee an ambush in his own country, insisted on climbing out of the car and joining the fray. Before it was over, he lay on the ground, mortally wounded. To “drive like hell” is always the preferred option of security personnel, particularly because there is no way of knowing how many shooters may be in the vicinity. Not to do so proves dangerous, but president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt had his reasons in February of 1933. The U.S. president-elect gave a speech seated on the back of his touring car to a crowd in Miami’s Bayfront Park, (Roosevelt liked to deliver speeches in the back of this car, a convertible, because it hid his paralysis while allowing for handshakes.). After the speech was over and Roosevelt was lifted back into his front seat, an assassin named Giuseppe Zangara opened fire. He missed Roosevelt but inadvertently hit the mayor of Chicago and a woman who stood behind the president. The Secret Service immediately ordered the car driven away with the president-elect safely inside, but Roosevelt insisted he not leave until the two other seriously wounded bystanders were picked up and driven to the hospital in his car. While en route, he cradled the head of the fatally wounded mayor. If there had been another shooter in the park, this delay in leaving might have proved a deadly mistake, not unlike that made by Trujillo and Collins, but this time the sole assassin was disarmed. Roosevelt’s display of calm and compassion was exactly what his country wanted to see. Ronald Reagan’s insouciance after he was shot in 1981 made an impression on his audience, but with a president wounded there was no question of hanging around the scene of the crime. He was hustled into his 1972 Lincoln Continental and driven expeditiously to the hospital.

Arlen Specter: Dr Humes - JFK SHOT FROM FRONT ON TV/ VIDEO/ DVD

Arlen Specter: Dr Humes - JFK SHOT FROM FRONT Arlen Specter: Dr Humes - JFK SHOT FROM FRONT. Arlen Specter took official testimony from his friend James Humes and says Humes speculated the neck shot came from the front and caused the blow out to JFK's head!!! 5/15/12 PA Cable oral history- Specter is 82 and perhaps wants to clear his conscience. Category: Entertainment Tags: Arlen SpecterClint HillWarren CommissionJFKPresident KennedyLBJJohnsonconspiracySecret ServiceDr James HumesOswaldassassinationKennedy DetailMrs Kennedy and MeLisa McCubbinGerald BlaineJackie Kennedy

Arlen Specter Bashes Clint Hill on TV/ VIDEO/ DVD

Arlen Specter Bashes Clint Hill Arlen Specter was THE first government official to take testimony from Clint Hill. Arlen tells the truth- Clint Hill DID drink the night before and stay out late: alcohol consumption while in TRAVEL STATUS was grounds for REMOVAL from the Secret Service, not to mention the detrimental effect sleep deprivation had on protecting JFK. 5/15/12 PA Cable oral history- Specter is 82 and perhaps wants to clear his conscience. Category: Entertainment Tags: Arlen SpecterClint HillWarren CommissionJFKPresident KennedyLBJJohnsonconspiracySecret ServiceDr James HumesOswaldassassinationKennedy DetailMrs Kennedy and MeLisa McCubbinGerald BlaineJackie Kennedy

more troubles...

Secret Service agent started passionate affair during Obama’s trip to Ireland Disgraced former agent began affair after meeting Canadian woman in a Dublin nightclub By CATHY HAYES, IrishCentral Staff Writer Published Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 9:22 AM Updated Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 9:33 AM Secret Service Agent Arthur Huntington allegedly had an affair with a Canadian woman he met in Copper Face Jacks The former Secret Service Agent at the heart of the Columbian sex scandal also seduced a woman in a Dublin bar after lying about his marital status, the New York Daily News reports. Arthur Huntington, a married father of two picked up the woman in Ireland in May when he was assigned to protest the president, after he met her at the Dublin nightclub Copper Face Jacks. The woman, who was from Canada, said he lied to her about being married in order to get her into bed. She described in detail how the 41-year-old Huntington seduced her. The 42-year-old Canadian who spoke to the Daily News on the condition of anonymity, said the Obama aide’s opening line was: “You’re not getting away from me tonight’ ” . Far from being a single man, the disgraced secret service agent lived with his wife Jolie and two sons in suburban Maryland. The agent continued to contact the woman and they later shared a two-day affair in Manhattan. It was only when details emerged about the Columbian sex scandal that she realized she has been duped. After learning the truth the woman said: “I was screaming. . . I was in disbelief. I couldn’t sleep that night. Then I started to read stuff that he was married, living in Maryland with his kids. You have no idea how I felt. I felt sick.” “Why is it the President is the only one that should have morals?” she said. “The people that are protecting him should be mindful of what they are doing.” “I feel used. He actively pursued me while he was married — and not only me. How many more others?” She said there was an instant attraction between her and the agent at Copper Face Jacks. She described the bar as loud and dark “We just started talking and we went downstairs,” she said. “He’s stunning,” recalled the Canadian, “He’s a gorgeous guy. There were a whole group of them, not just him. He was the only one that stood out. He’s super fit and so am I.” “I don’t even think the drink came yet and he said, ‘Do you have your phone? I want you to take my number.’ ” He grabbed the mobile to punch in his digits. After the Copper’s encounter they shared a taxi and a good night kiss. For their second rendezvous they met in New York City, she described their two days in Manhattan as “amazing”. After meeting for dinner they returned to his room at the Marriott East Side on Lexington Ave. at E. 49th St. for a night of passion. The question of presidential security on Obama’s Irish trip will undoubtedly be raised by U.S. authorities.

SA Radford "Rad" Jones

Local man to talk about time with Secret Service under JFK Hillsdale Daily News Posted May 11, 2012 @ 06:00 PM Waldron, Mich. — A 1958 Waldron High School graduate will return home Saturday to share with locals his experience as a member of the Secret Service during President John F. Kennedy's administration. Rad "Wedge" Jones joined the Secret Service in 1963 and, shortly after completing his training, was assigned to Kennedy's summer home in Hyannis Port, Maine. He was quickly assigned to the White House and made several trips with the President but had been assigned to John Jr.'s detail when the Dallas shooting occurred. Following President Kennedy's assassination, Jones served four months in New York with Mrs. Kennedy and the children. Jones continued to serve through six more presidents and was with President Reagan during his attempted assassination [VMP: HE WAS??? THAT IS NEWS TO ME]. He retired from the Secret Service in 1983. Last fall, Jones donated the book "The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break the Silence" by Gerald Blaine to the Waldron District Library. This Saturday, Jones will speak in Waldron about the book and his experience as well as share slides from the period. The program is sponsored by the library. Jones will speak at 11 a.m. in the fellowship hall of the Waldron Wesleyan Church, 200 E. Center Street in Waldron. A free lunch of lasagna and salad will be served after the presentation. The library is asking that anyone wishing to attend RSVP by calling 517-286-6511.

Very interesting links re: George Hickey/ "Mortal Error"

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/H%20Disk/Hickey%20v.%20Donahue/Item%201A.pdf http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/00/hickey.lawsuit

Prostitute at center of Secret Service scandal: Agents were 'stupid brutes'

Prostitute at center of Secret Service scandal: Agents were 'stupid brutes' The prostitute at the center of the Secret Service sex scandal speaks in her first American television interview, calling the agents "stupid brutes" and saying she's "not to blame for being attractive." NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports. By Michelle Kosinski and Denny Alfonso, NBC News Updated at 8:16 a.m. ET: MADRID, Spain -- A woman identifying herself as the Colombian prostitute at the center of a scandal involving U.S. Secret Service personnel has called the group of agents "stupid brutes" who put partying above President Barack Obama's security. "These seem like completely stupid, idiotic people," Dania Londono Suarez said in an interview which aired on Monday's TODAY. "I don't know how Obama had them in his security force." She also accused the agents of "leaving their duty behind" and described them as "stupid brutes." ________________________________________ The scandal broke in April when, in advance of Obama's arrival at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, agents allegedly brought prostitutes to their hotel rooms. One of the men, Suarez told NBC News, refused to pay her for sex so she went to the police. So far, eight agents have lost their jobs as a result of the incident. Suarez, 24, said three men who approached and propositioned her and her friends were drinking vodka like it was water. "They liked to show off their bodies, great bodies, well-defined abs," Saurez said of the men she first met at a nightclub. "They liked attention." NBC's Kristen Welker talks about the interview given by the woman in the middle of scandal, in which she alleges she did not know the men were Secret Service agents. The mother of a nine-year-old son said she made it perfectly clear to one that a night with her would cost $800. "And he accepted. And it was clear," she said. But in the morning after they had had sex, the man gave her only $50 and ordered her out of the room, Suarez said. "I am not to blame for being attractive," she told TODAY. "They are to blame -- for leaving their duty behind." NBC's Kristen Welker talks about the interview given by the woman in the middle of scandal, in which she alleges she did not know the men were Secret Service agents. The mother of a nine-year-old son said she made it perfectly clear to one that a night with her would cost $800. "And he accepted. And it was clear," she said. But in the morning after they had had sex, the man gave her only $50 and ordered her out of the room, Suarez said. "I am not to blame for being attractive," she told TODAY. "They are to blame -- for leaving their duty behind."

Kennedy assassination is author's life's work

Kennedy assassination is author's life's work By DENNIS TAYLOR Herald Staff Writermontereyherald.com Posted: 05/06/2012 09:14:46 PM PDT May 7, 2012 4:15 AM GMTUpdated: 05/06/2012 09:14:47 PM PDT His life has been a long, strange ride, and an unpleasant one at times — a price that has been paid by serious writers throughout history. Harrison Livingstone, 75, who ranks among the world's most prolific investigative authors on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, has been a serious writer for most of his life. An early work, "David Johnson Passed Through Here," was hailed as a ground-breaking novel about child abuse. Like many of his published books — more than two dozen now — "David Johnson" is at least partially autobiographical. Livingstone described his mother in print as a "violent and hysterical" woman with whom he "never had a two-way conversation." "Terrible things happened when I was a kid," he said, "but a part of you rises above it." His first name is an homage to a branch of his family tree that sprang from William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States. Livingstone's aunt married a billionaire who co-founded the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. He said he was written out of the will when he opted to live as a writer, rather than commit to the family business. His father was a World War I hero with the Army's Rainbow Division, hauling soldiers, alive and dead, off the battlefield at the river Marne. "I was very proud of my father, even if he died (in 1985) thinking I was a failure," Livingstone said. "I vowed not to fail, no matter what, and I became an obsessed workaholic for the next 24 years." His stepfather was a supervisor in charge of the two FBI agents who observed the autopsy of Kennedy. Livingstone seized on the opportunities stemming from that connection. He has written 3,400 pages about the assassination of Kennedy and what he is certain is a conspiracy to hide the facts about what really happened in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. The truth, said Livingstone, is that four men (none of them Lee Harvey Oswald) fired 13 shots at Kennedy, and some of the fatal bullets struck the president in the front of the head and neck — not the just the back, as the Warren Commission Report said. Livingstone said Kennedy's murder was orchestrated in part by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, partly for the benefit of wealthy Texas oilmen and others who were heavily invested in the war industry and stood to lose billions if the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam. Vice President Lyndon Johnson, a friend to those barons, was a heartbeat away from solving their problem. Consumed by Kennedy Livingstone has written 25 published books, as well as plays, movie scripts, novels and poetry. But Kennedy's assassination has consumed most of his adult life. His obsession with the case has spilled into six published volumes (all available at the Monterey Public Library), three of which made the New York Times bestseller list. "High Treason: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy; What Really Happened" and its sequel sold more copies than any other JFK conspiracy books in history. His 2004 book, "The Hoax of the Century: Decoding the Forgery of the Zapruder Film," lays out evidence that the home movie of the assassination was drastically doctored before it was shown to the press and public. Livingstone believes his findings are being validated today by FBI and Secret Service agents who were on duty in Dallas when Kennedy was killed — men now going public with their information. One of those agents, Clint Hill, famously leaped onto the back of the limousine to protect first lady Jackie Kennedy. Livingstone said Hill's April 6 NBC interview promoting his own memoir, "Mrs. Kennedy and Me," corroborated his findings, providing renewed hope that the truth about the president's murder, and its cover-up, will finally come to light. For Livingstone, it's none too soon. He has stage 4 cancer and said doctors are unable to give him a definitive prognosis about his longevity.

MORE people questioning Clint Hill

Steven Kossor says: In his new book, Clint Hill describes his visit to the Bethesda morgue to view President Kennedy's body: "...Then gently rolling the president over to one side, he pointed out a wound in the upper back , at the neckline quite small.This he said corresponded to the exit wound at the throat." In his testimony before the Warren Commission, Clint Hill testified as follows: "Representative BOGGS. Did you see any other wound other than the head wound? Mr. HILL. "Yes, sir; I saw an opening in the back, about 6 inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column." Clint moved the entrance wound on the back UP six inches in his new book. That's where the Warren Commission wanted it to be, because if it really WAS six inches lower, the bullet couldn't possibly have exited from Kennedy's neck (that would make "the single bullet theory" even more preposterous). Memories nearer to the event are always more accurate than memories 50 years later! Did Clint need to lie to get a chance to promote his book? Sure looks like it. In reply to an earlier post on May 6, 2012 4:31:43 AM PDT Douglas says: Historical truth matters, my friend, and is more important than Clint's "feelings" about Jackie Kennedy. If Clint Hill had not ventured to alter history in his accounts of President Kennedy's wounds, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But Clint Hill chose to write this book, and he is responsible for its contents. He cannot blame the statements in his book on his ghost writer/co-author, either. He is responsible for the book's contents, and for the way he described the assassination in the recent MSNBC interview about---that's right---this book. No one forced Clint to do the interview with Chris Matthews---and that interview was about THIS BOOK, and about what the wounds he described IN THIS BOOK mean. We're dealing with American history here, man, not just someone's cream puff feelings about a former First Lady. Consider what has just happened: Clint Hill has described for years (ever since 1963 and 1964) what could ONLY have been an exit wound in the BACK of President Kennedy's head---and yet in his interview with Chris Matthews, he said it had to be an entry wound, fired from above and behind. Nonsense. Entry wounds are small, and exit wounds are large, like the damage Clint Hill described to JFK's head in his book. It gets even worse. As described in the comment above yours, Clint Hill actually changed his story about the back wound in his new book, "Mrs. Kennedy and Me." When he was before the Warren commission and under oath in 1964, he described the back wound as "about six inches below the neckline." I repeat, he said this under oath. That description concurs with the descriptions given by the two FBI agents who were at the autopsy (at their 1997 ARRB depositions, when they too were under oath), and is also consistent with the holes in JFK's shirt and suit coat. BUT IN HIS NEW BOOK---which we are discussing here---Clint Hill moved the back wound SIX INCHES HIGHER, so that he now describes it as "at the neckline." The reason why he did this is rather obvious, and was stated by Mr. Hill himself (see the quote above): he was attempting, in his book, to bolster the moribund single bullet theory of Arlen Specter. He did not do this in his sworn testimony in 1964, so he was obviously instructed to amend that error in his new book. If Clint Hill only wanted us to read about his "feelings for Jackie Kennedy," that is all he should have written about. When he chose to write about JFK's wounds, he became responsible for what he wrote and must now accept the consequences for what he has written. Historical truth matters---it matters a great deal---and historical distortions, redactions, and falsehoods cannot be tolerated whenever they are perpetrated. No one gets a pass on history and truth, my friend---especially not Clint Hill, who was one of the Secret Service agents who was up late drinking alcohol the night before the assassination, in violation of Secret Service regulations. Clint Hill is not a sacred cow, and is not immune from criticism when he changes his testimony about the back wound on the President, or when he attempts to re-describe an exit wound in the skull as an entrance wound, on national television. Actions have consequences---let Clint Hill learn that if he wishes to become an author, and write about subjects he says he never intended to write about. This country's history---its true history---is more important than Clint Hill's feelings. In reply to an earlier post on May 6, 2012 10:14:56 AM PDT MadameX says: Mr. Horne says-- "I knew what game Clint Hill was playing when he described JFK's head wound in "The Kennedy Detail" and in "Mrs. Kennedy and Me"---the game was: I will describe exactly what I saw and will not lie about it, but neither will I openly challenge the Warren Commission's or the HSCA's "government line" that Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy all on his own" I've always felt Clint Hill wants the American public to know the truth and drops hints here and there so we will know the truth. Yet for some reason he will not contradict the Warren Commission Report that reads like an official company motto of what we are to believe. I was confused from the beginning at Oswald's reactions on national TV. He seemed angry, belligerent and afraid saying he was a patsy. If he wanted notoriety for assassinating the president, it looks like he would have admitted he had fired the shots. Anyway, it's good that 80% of Americans don't believe the official story. It means we're in touch with our common sense in spite of what the media tells us. Hill contradicts his own Warren Commission testimony, May 5, 2012 By Steven Kossor - See all my reviewsThis review is from: Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir (Hardcover) In his new book, Mrs. Kennedy and Me, Clint Hill describes his visit to the Bethesda morgue to view President Kennedy's body: "...Then gently rolling the president over to one side, he pointed out a wound in the upper back, at the neckline quite small." In his testimony before the Warren Commission in 1964, Clint Hill testified as follows: Representative BOGGS. "Did you see any other wound other than the head wound?" Mr. HILL. "Yes, sir; I saw an opening in the back, about 6 inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column." Clint moved the entrance wound on the back UP six inches in his new book. That's where the Warren Commission wanted it to be, because if it really WAS six inches lower, the bullet couldn't possibly have exited from Kennedy's neck (that would make "the single bullet theory" even more preposterous). Memories nearer to the event are always more accurate than memories 50 years later! Did Clint need to lie to get a chance to promote his book? Sure looks like it. Initial post: May 6, 2012 4:50:00 AM PDT Douglas says: Thank you for pointing this out, Mr. Kossor. In his new book, Clint Hill attempts to change a crucial element of his 1964 sworn testimony before the Warren Commission's Arlen Specter. You have caught him red-handed. Good work. Hill's 1964 sworn testimony about a back wound six inches below the neckline was consistent with the clothing holes in JFK's shirt and suit coat, and as it turns out, was also consistent with the sworn testimony of FBI agents Sibert and O'Neill before the Assassination Records Review Board in 1997. (These two FBI agents were at JFK's autopsy for three full hours, from 8 to 11 PM on 11/22/63. They testified before the ARRB in 1997, and during their depositions, both men expressed the opinion that because JFK's back wound was so low, Specter's single bullet theory was impossible.) This attempt by Clint Hill to overturn his sworn testimony in 1964, and his decision on May 4th to re-describe an obvious exit wound in the President's skull as an entry wound on national television, are unacceptable. They tarnish, in a very serious way, what otherwise might have been a very enjoyable memoir. This behavior of his suggests coaching by contacts within the Federal government, who are still aggressively attempting to ram the "lone nut shooter myth" down the throats of the American people, as the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination approaches.

Doug Horne's review of Clint Hill's book+

Clint Hill Crosses the Line on National TV, Equating the Exit Wound He Saw in Dallas with an Entry Wound, May 5, 2012 By Douglas (Falls Church, VA, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME) This review is from: Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir (Hardcover) SHAME ON BOTH OF YOU, CLINT HILL AND CHRIS MATTHEWS May 4th, 20:45 By Douglas P. Horne, author of "Inside the Assassination Records Review Board" I watched a very sorry display on Chris Matthews' MSNBC show "Hardball" tonight: Chris Matthews conducted a short, stage-managed, cream-puff interview with retired Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, and the game was rigged "from the get-go." That was obvious. But it was also completely unacceptable, and forever tarnishes the reputations of both of these men. The occasion was a brief discussion of Clint Hill's short new memoir, "Mrs. Kennedy and Me." I picked the book up in the store about three weeks ago and read the three or so pages that everyone naturally turns to: Clint Hill's description of what happened during the shots in Dallas, on Elm Street, on November 22, 1963, when he ran from the left running board of the Queen Mary (the Secret Service follow-up car that day), to President Kennedy's limousine, only to arrive at, and mount the limousine, after all of the shots had been fired. I was particularly interested to see whether Clint Hill's description of President Kennedy's head wound had changed from what he wrote in 1963, or from what he testified to in 1964 while under oath before the Warren Commission, or from the words attributed to him in the recent book "The Kennedy Detail." The words hadn't changed. In his new memoir, Clint Hill (again) described a large, gaping wound in the right rear of President Kennedy's head, and made explicitly clear that a large amount of debris had been blown to the rear after the fatal shot, and that Jacqueline Kennedy had emerged from her seat to retrieve a part of President Kennedy's skull that had gone to the rear, and lay on the trunk lid, after the fatal shot. He described all of that again today on television with Chris Matthews. Anyone familiar with his 1963 written report, and with his 1964 sworn testimony, also knows that in this 1964 testimony before Assistant Warren Commission Counsel Arlen Specter, he said that a large portion of the rear of President Kennedy's head was lying in the back seat of the car, and that the trunk lid was covered with bloody water and brain issue. All of this---the biological debris from her husband's head retrieved by Jacqueline Kennedy from the trunk lid; the large, gaping wound in the right rear of the head of the 35th President of the United States; and the blood and brain tissue sprayed over the trunk lid---all of this, of course, speaks graphically and plainly of a fatal shot from the front, or right front (not a fatal shot from the rear, where the Book Depository was). Clint Hill knows it, and Chris Matthews knows it. But they pretended otherwise, presumably for all the "low information voters" in the TV audience. The problem for these two guys is, there aren't that many low information (i.e., uneducated or stupid) voters watching this show. The show has a very highly educated audience. So what they did was not only grossly dishonest---it was blatantly offensive, as well as just plain dumb. Now, anyone who has read about the JFK assassination knows that every doctor who treated JFK at the the side of his gurney in Trauma Room One at Parkland Hospital, in Dallas, described the same head wound that Clint Hill did in 1963 and 1964: a wound that could only have been an EXIT WOUND, which meant that the fatal shot had to come from the front, or right front, not from behind. Not one doctor at Parkland who wrote a treatment report the day of the assassination mentioned anything in those reports but a wound in the right rear of the skull. (And no one mentioned any damage to the top of his head or the right side of his head above the ear.) If you don't believe me, read the treatment reports (they were published in the Warren Report, after all). The wound described by these Parkland treating physicians and nurses that day was an avulsed wound (exploded outward from within), and the right rear of JFK's head was devoid of scalp and skull, in an exploded area about the size of a baseball. The head wound observed at Parkland Hospital during the 40 minutes that President Kennedy was treated (that duration was given by Dr. Clark in a press conference that day) had none of the characteristics of an entry wound whatsoever. It had all of the classic characteristics of an exit wound. A large amount of cerebral brain tissue was missing---blown out---and part of the badly damaged cerebellum, the part of the brain very low in the rear of the skull, was extruding from the head wound onto the treatment cart, as the Parkland physicians treated President Kennedy and tried to save his life. Even Chris Matthews knows that bullets make small holes when entering the body, and large holes when exiting the body. (Especially head wounds.) And yet Chris Matthews asked Clint Hill today if he had come to any conclusions about the shooting, and Clint Hill, obviously prepared for the question, said, "Sure: one shooter, three shots, from behind," or words almost identical to that. Now, Clint Hill knows that cannot be true. He always has. In fact, he knows it is such utter bull, and so contrary to the wound he has described since 1963, that he didn't say that in his new book---he merely described the wound he observed (an obvious exit wound), without commenting on where the shots came from or who did the shooting. I knew what game Clint Hill was playing when he described JFK's head wound in "The Kennedy Detail" and in "Mrs. Kennedy and Me"---the game was: I will describe exactly what I saw and will not lie about it, but neither will I openly challenge the Warren Commission's or the HSCA's "government line" that Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy all on his own. The rules of the game Clint Hill was obviously engaging in when these two books were published were, "I will tell the truth about what I saw, but I will not comment on what it means." In playing by those unwritten rules, Hill managed to sit on the fence, and tell the truth about the head wound, and at the same time avoided directly refuting the Warren Commission and HSCA conclusions that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK from the Texas School Book Depository, firing from above and behind. But today Clint Hill crossed the line, and said JFK was killed by a Communist sympathizer, Lee Harvey Oswald, firing all the shots from behind. Shame on you, Clint Hill. You crossed a line today that you did not cross in either of the two recent books that quote you. What you did was unforgivable. And then Chris Matthews (who served in the Peace Corps, not in the military), gave us all his best benefit as a "firearms expert" by saying that when he stood on Elm Street in Dallas in the 1990s ("when I was down there with CBS," he said), he had concluded that killing JFK from the TSBD was "an easy shot." Gee, thank you, Chris, for this profound wisdom based on all your years as a trained marksman in the Peace Corps. Of course, Chris Matthews never mentioned today that the scope on the rifle was a cheap piece of crap that was misaligned; that the rifle found in the Depository was an unreliable piece of junk; or that it had a defective firing pin which the FBI had to replace before even test firing it. And Chris Matthews never discussed the last marksmanship test score noted in Oswald's USMC Service Record before being discharged from the Marine Corps, which was only one point above failure. (Oswald received average marksmanship scores in boot camp, achieving the middle of three shooter designations, but obviously received a "pass" in 1959---when he most likely failed his test that year. It is obvious to me that after his skills had atrophied through disuse, he was given the official score that was only one point above failure, as a gift. As fellow Marine Nelson Delgado explained to Mark Lane in 1966 (in the film "Rush to Judgment"), Oswald was such a poor shot he was always getting flagged with "Maggie's Drawers" at the El Toro shooting range; his poor marksmanship was a standing joke in his own unit.) Chris Matthews will not discuss evidence, because he knows he will lose the argument---he only wants to discuss the politically correct conclusions endorsed by the National Security State. Chris Matthews has much to be ashamed of here. He used to be the principal aide to Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill. It was Tip O'Neill who published in his own memoir, "Man of the House," on page 211 (paperback edition, St. Martin's Press, 1987), that the two aides closest to President Kennedy on a personal basis---Kenneth O'Donnell, and Dave Powers---told him at dinner in 1968, five years after JFK's assassination, that at least two shots came from behind the fence on the grassy knoll, to the right front of the limousine. O'Donnell also told Tip O'Neill at that dinner meeting that he had lied to the Warren Commission about the origin of the shots, at the request of the FBI. Surely Chris, you cannot pretend to be unfamiliar with this recollection of Tip O'Neill's??? If he did not tell you himself over a beer one night, surely you read it in his memoirs? Don't tell me you have not read the memoirs of your former boss, Chris...that won't fly. Clint Hill crossed the line tonight from telling just part of the truth, to telling a lie that I am sure he does not believe in, and that cannot be true. And he knows it. Historical truth matters, and the deliberate distortions of historical truth engaged in by Clint Hill and Chris Matthews yesterday on national TV are harming this country. Severely harming it. America will remain a nation of adolescents if it continues to treat the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations as "taboo subjects" that cannot be spoken about truthfully. Propaganda should never replace truth. Apparently that is what the mainstream TV and print news media would like to see happen next year on the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. Chris Matthews, an otherwise intelligent person, repeatedly promotes the falsehood of the Lone Assassin Myth as if it were certified fact, when it cannot be true. And he knows he is promoting a Big Lie. Is this the price for keeping your job with the Mainstream Corporate Media, Chris? Or do you really believe that by lying about JFK's assassination, and pretending there was NOT a coup in this country in 1963, that you are somehow "protecting America's institutions?" I hope not, because there is nothing more corrosive to a democracy than lies perpetuated by big media and the government. How do you sleep with yourself at night, Chris? How do you look at yourself in the mirror when you shave every day? This is the last night I will ever watch Chris Matthews or "Hardball" again. I am boycotting that show, and any show he appears on, as long as he remains alive on this mortal coil, for Chris Matthews has proven himself---once again---to be a man without honor whenever he discusses the assassination of the man he professes to be his greatest hero, Jack Kennedy. The Intelligence Community (read: CIA) has a stranglehold on the national TV media and the national print media, when it comes to the JFK assassination. You are not allowed to speak about it anymore, unless you support the Warren Commission, or unless you disparage JFK's character and misrepresent the historical record of his presidency. The major executives of these outlets and their producers are in the government's pocket, when it comes to the taboo subject of the Kennedy assassination. The truth gets out on local and regional radio stations, and the government has not quite yet figured out how to shut down free speech on the internet, but Cass Sunstein, President Obama's Information Czar, would like to---he said so in a prestigious law school paper just about 4 years ago. Google his name, and you can read the outrageous paper, yourself. Sunstein actually advocated fining people on the internet who engage in "conspiracy" speech that he defines as irresponsible (including about JFK's death), and also advocated infiltrating such groups, and combating their messages, with government-sponsored third party surrogates. And this man was appointed America's Information Chief by President Obama. Unsettling, isn't it? The response to this stranglehold on the mainstream media by the American people (80% of whom have consistently concluded over the decades that JFK was killed by a conspiracy, and that there was a massive coverup) should be to openly and vociferously protest the Big Lie whenever it is trotted out as it was tonight, and to aggressively boycott those shows that promote the Big Lie. President Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy that involved many in the National Security Establishment at the time, as well as former members of the National Security Establishment; and a massive medical coverup was implemented immediately after his death in an attempt to hide all evidence that he was shot from the front (as well as from behind). That coverup has now failed. If you are not familiar with how it was carried out, you can read my five volume book, "Inside the Assassination Records Review Board." The ten depositions taken by the ARRB General Counsel and me, of JFK autopsy witnesses, in 1996 and 1997, undeniably prove that a medical coverup occurred. Anyone not afraid of the truth, and of evaluating facts and what they really mean, should read my book. It will take you to a place where you are less secure, less proud, and less confident about your own country, but if you are someone who believes that truth can be cleansing, and have a powerful, positive, and redemptive force, than my book may just be the perfect antidote to the propaganda about the JFK assassination that will rule the mainstream media airwaves and the national print media between now and the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. Meanwhile, boycott MSNBC's "Hardball." If you truly believe that JFK was killed by a conspiracy and that the U.S. government covered it up, then turn off the tube every time Chris Matthews' face appears on the air. Chris used to only talk like this every November 22nd, on the anniversary of JFK's assassination; now he is going out of his way to do it as often as possible. Make MSNBC pay a price for promoting the Big Lie in America. We all deserve better journalism than that. END

Secret Service Scandal: Colombia Woman Says She Fled Country

Secret Service Scandal: Colombia Woman Says She Fled Country BOGOTA, Colombia — A woman who says she was the prostitute who triggered the U.S. Secret Service scandal in Colombia said Friday that the agents involved were "idiots" for letting it happen, and declared that if she were a spy and sensitive information was available, she could have easily obtained it. The woman said she spent five hours in a Cartagena, Colombia, hotel room with an agent, and while she barely got cab fare out of him, she could have gotten information that would have compromised the security of U.S. President Barack Obama if the agent had any. "Totally," she replied when asked. "The man slept all night," said the woman, who was identified by her lawyer as Dania Londono Suarez. "If I had wanted to, I could have gone through all his documents, his wallet, his suitcase." She said in the 90-minute interview with Colombia's W Radio conducted in Spain that no U.S. investigator had been in touch with her, although reporters descended on her home a week after the incident when a taxi driver led them to it. "They could track me anywhere in the world that I go but they haven't done so," she said, speaking in Spanish. "If the Secret Service agents were idiots, imagine the investigators." That alarmed a U.S. congressman who is monitoring the case. Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, issued a statement on Friday expressing concern that investigators "have been unable to locate and interview two of the female foreign nationals involved," including Londono. "I have asked the Secret Service for an explanation of how they have failed to find this woman when the news media seems to have no trouble doing so." Eight Secret Service agents have lost their jobs in the scandal, although there is no evidence any of the 10 women interviewed by U.S. investigators for their roles in it have any connection to terrorist groups, King said earlier this week. In the interview, Londono called the Secret Service agents caught up in the scandal "fools for being from Obama's security and letting all this happen." "When I said, `I'm going to call the police so they pay me my money,' and it didn't bother them, didn't they see the magnitude of the problem?" she said. Londono said the man she slept with never identified himself as a member of Obama's advance security detail for the April 14-15 Summit of the Americas and said she saw nothing in his room that would have indicated the man's job other than a brown uniform. Londono said the man had agreed to pay her $800, but that she never would have made a public fuss about his failure to pay had she known he was part of Obama's security detail and realized the repercussions it would have for her. "My life is practically destroyed," she said. "My name is in the gutter." Her photo has been splashed all over the Internet since a newspaper took it off Facebook a week after the incident, when she said she fled Colombia fearing for her life. "I was afraid they might retaliate," she said, saying she feared for herself and her family after looking up Secret Service on the Internet and seeing that some agents were sharpshooters. The mother of a 9-year-old boy she said she had when she was 17, Londono said she would happily sell her story now and pose nude. She said she had contracted one of Colombia's top lawyers, Abelardo De la Espriella. He confirmed her identity for The Associated Press and said she called him for the first time earlier Friday, recommended by the radio host who interviewed Londono. He said he didn't see that there was any criminal infraction in the incident. Prostitution is legal in Colombia. "Let's see how we can help her," De la Espriella said of Londono. Londono appeared in the interview, part of which was also broadcast by Colombia's Caracol TV, with just a little makeup, her fingernails painted white and wearing a tight green dress. W Radio asked that the location of the interview not be disclosed for Londono's security, and she later gave an interview to the Spanish radio network Cadena Ser, which said it was recorded in one of its studios. Londono giggled nervously and refused to answer prying questions from reporters from several international news media during the W Radio interview on topics such as the nature of her sex act with the Secret Service agent. She said that the desk clerk at the Hotel Caribe called at 6:30 a.m. to tell her it was time to leave, and the agent addressed her with an insult in telling her to get out. Dania said it was nearly three hours after the man kicked her out of the room and she alerted a Colombian policeman stationed on the hallway before three colleagues of the agent, who had refused to open his door after giving her $30, scraped together $250 and paid her, she said. "'The only thing they said was `Please, please. No police, no police,'" she said. Later that day, April 12, the agent and 11 other Secret Service colleagues who may have also had prostitutes in their rooms at the five-star hotel were sent home, under investigation for alleged misconduct. Londono's story agrees with what investigators in Washington have disclosed. She said she met the man, one of 10-11 agents in a Cartagena bar, and accompanied him back to the hotel, stopping on the way to buy condoms. She said the other agents at the bar were all drunk. "They bought alcohol like they were buying water," she said, though she never saw any evidence that any of them used illegal drugs. She said the man she was with was only moderately intoxicated. She said she did not know his name. Londono said that she went to Dubai after the scandal broke and spent time with someone she had previously met in Cartagena. She would not say whether that person had been a client. She said she was charging between $600 and $800 for sex while working in Cartagena and only accepted foreigners as clients, considering herself an "escort." Asked why she became a prostitute, Londono said "it's an easy life" that would allow her to study and provide for her son. At one point in the interview, her mother was brought in by phone, and described the shame she felt. Londono said her mother did not know until the scandal broke that she was a prostitute and had been medicated for depression. She said her son was unaware of his mother's celebrity, and said she considers herself finished with prostitution. "This has cured me of it all," Londono said. "Even if I'm not hired for the magazine covers, I will never do it again." ___ Associated Press writer Frank Bajak contributed from Lima, Peru.

Wecht on cover of tabloid, to his surprise

Wecht on cover of tabloid, to his surprise 5/3/12 By Michael A. Fuoco / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Cyril H. Wecht is a voracious news consumer, reading five daily newspapers, not a supermarket tabloid among them. "I don't read tabloids. I can't afford $4 for a newspaper," he quipped. That's why he was surprised to learn from a reporter that he was the cover story for the April 30 edition of the National Examiner. Thankfully, the Examiner didn't purport to have learned the renowned forensic pathologist was a "Missing Kardashian Sister!" or that he had a hand in a "Brad and Angelina Split!" Still, the headline was a little jarring: "Top coroner demands: DIG UP JFK!" A subhead proclaimed "New Autopsy Will Finger Real Killers!" Huh? Really? Anyone who doesn't live in a cave, who reads a newspaper, watches TV or listens to the radio knows Dr. Wecht is anything but media shy. He's the media's go-to expert on all manner of death, dying and crime. He is a nationally acclaimed forensic pathologist, an attorney, a medical-legal consultant, a professor of medicine and of law. He is accommodating to local, national and international outlets alike. Indeed, while customers checking out at supermarkets and drug stores Saturday stared at his photograph on the tabloid cover, he was appearing on the CBS news show "48 Hours," discussing a New York murder case. Still, for all his media accessibility, he was stumped by the story's origin even though the subject wasn't a surprise. Perhaps the harshest critic of the Warren Commission's finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of President John F. Kennedy, Dr. Wecht has contended for more than four decades that a new autopsy could show there were two shooters. But he said he wasn't on a current campaign in that regard, had never "demanded" an exhumation and noted that a new autopsy wouldn't "finger the real killers." Most surprisingly, he said he never spoke to the writer of the two-page story, Gregory Michaels, but didn't dispute quotes attributed to him. "I'm surprised because I never spoke with the man, but I'm not surprised with the fact it is attributed to me, because I've been saying this for 47 years," Dr. Wecht said. As it turns out, the story was an apparent rewrite of one published in the March 19 edition of the Examiner's sister publication The Globe that was written by Dawna Kaufmann, Dr. Wecht's co-author of two books. Ms. Kaufmann, of Los Angeles, said she wrote the story for The Globe after rereading Dr. Wecht's 1993 book, "Cause of Death," that included his views on the JFK assassination, and subsequently interviewing him. She said over her objection Globe editors insisted on saying that Dr. Wecht demanded an exhumation. Not only didn't she know the story would be recycled as an Examiner cover story, she did not know Mr. Michaels. Attempts to reach him were unsuccessful. Dr. Wecht was more bemused than annoyed by his tabloid treatment and his sharing the cover with headlines proclaiming "COUNTRY MUSIC WARS!" "Man drives across America--ON 2 GALLONS OF GAS!" and "Whitney's DISTURBING AUTOPSY REPORT!" "I've been in tabloids over the years, such as in the case of O.J. [Simpson] and JonBenet [Ramsey], but I don't know if I ever made the cover. I'm always willing to talk to them. I'm not going to be snooty." The Examiner story wasn't the first time Dr. Wecht has been front-page news regarding the JFK assassination. In August 1972, he was given permission to examine the Warren Commission's evidence and discovered the president's brain, supposedly preserved for examination, was missing. Dr. Wecht's discovery was a front-page story the next morning in The New York Times with a headline that had a dash of tabloid journalism in it -- "Mystery Cloaks Fate of Brain of Kennedy." He said he still believes, after all of these years, that an examination of Kennedy's skull, even without the brain, could answer once and for all whether Oswald acted alone. "Do I believe this is going to occur? Absolutely not. There's no way it's going to occur. I'm not on any kind of campaign for that." But might Caroline Kennedy consider an exhumation if she sees the National Examiner cover in a supermarket? He chuckled. "Caroline Kennedy will be in a supermarket when I grow hair on my head." Vince Palamara · Duquesne University I greatly respect Dr Wecht, as do most thinking people---doctor, lawyer, author; for decades, a tremendous speaker and advocate.

Secret Service Escort Says US Agents 'Showed No Respect'

Secret Service Escort Says US Agents 'Showed No Respect' By CHRISTINE ROMO and BRIAN ROSS | ABC News One of the Colombian escorts at the center of the Secret Service scandal emerged from hiding today, recounting in detail her night in Cartagena with a member of President Obama's protective detail and saying she fears for her safety. Dania Suarez, a 24-year old dark-haired beauty, appeared on a call-in show carried by Colombia's W Radio and Carocol Television Friday morning, telling callers the agent was "heavily intoxicated" and everything in his luggage and his papers was left open in his room and could have been easily stolen. Asked if she had been a spy could she have removed the papers, Suarez said, "Absolutely, absolutely." "Clearly, in those moments, if I had wanted to, obviously, I could have done so," she said. Suarez says she met the agent at a disco where they danced and she began to rub her hands over his body. "He didn't know how to dance," she said of the agent, identified in published accounts elsewhere as Arthur Huntington, who has left the Secret Service under circumstances that are unclear. She said that Huntington did not appear to be searching for a prostitute but that "I found him." Suarez said Huntington fell asleep when they returned to his room and refused to answer the question of whether they actually had sex. "If I answer this you will know what happened," she said. Suarez said the agent "did not feel he got what he was being asked to pay for" and that this led to dispute over how much he owed her at the end of the evening. She said she does not consider herself a prostitute, but an escort because prostitutes "are lower class and live in brothels." She confirmed other accounts that the agent offered her $30, which led to a confrontation at the agent's door which drew the attention of the hotel manager and local police. She said the agents pleaded, "Please, please no police, no police." "Between all of them, they collected the money, $250, and that's what happened in the hall," she said. "They were part of Obama's security group and I told them I was going to call the police so they can pay me the money." Suarez said she left Colombia for a few days because of concerns her life could be in danger and has had no contact with any American official. "Maybe they are just as dumb as the Secret Service agents," she told the station. Throughout her appearance this morning, dressed in a skimpy green blouse, Suarez laughed and smiled even as the host reminded her of the seriousness of the scandal. "This is who I am and all I really care about is my mother and my young son," Suarez said.

A leader of a foreign country believed the Secret Service was compromised on 11/22/63

Page 295 of President Bill Clinton's "My Life": SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC, President of Serbia and Yugoslavia, to Bill Clinton in 1995- "...he was sure [Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin's assassination was the result of betrayal by someone in his security service. Then he said that everyone knew that's what happened to President Kennedy, too, but that we Americans "have been successful in covering it up."" Interesting. Vince Palamara

SAIC Eddie Marinzel

PITTSBURGH — For Pittsburgh native Eddie Marinzel, Sept. 11, 2001, started with a morning jog on a golf course in Sarasota, Fla., with the president of the United States.Marinzel was the deputy special agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division for the Secret Service on the day of the attacks. He said as he was escorting President George W. Bush into a nearby elementary school, he knew the rest of the day would be anything but normal. "As we were walking in, Karl Rove actually mentioned to the president that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers," Marinzel said. Marinzel said 15 minutes later President Bush's chief of staff reported more bad news. "When I saw the look on the president's face I knew there was a problem, a bad problem. Andy Card then came over and whispered the same thing into my year and that was that we were under an attack," Marinzel said. "Right then and there things completely changed. We needed to figure out what we were going to do with the president." Marinzel said after a few brief words to the audience at the school, President Bush was back in his motorcade en route to Air Force One when they got word that the Pentagon had also been attacked. At that point, Marinzel said the crew had to make a quick decision on where the president would be the most safe. He said the group decided on Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana because of the exceptional communications department located there. But Marinzel said that was not where the president wanted to go. "He was adamant that he wanted to back to D.C. We could not take him to an unsecured area. The greatest thing for the terrorist would be to kill the president of the United States," said Marinzel. The president recorded a message that was aired after he left the base in Louisiana and traveled to an Air Force base in Nebraska, where Marinzel said President Bush made it clear that it was time to return to the capital. "I was seated behind the president. He turned to me and said, 'Eddie, let's go. We are going back to Washington.' At that point I knew it wasn't the time to argue or try to change his mind. I knew it was over," said Marinzel. On 9/11 Marinzel said President Bush remained calm in front of his staff and he saw little change afterward. "He was always very principled and hardworking. None of that changes. I do feel that he was determined that this would never happen on American soil again. Use all the assets the U.S. had to offer to make sure that we would never be attacked in the homeland again and he made that kind of hallmark on his job," Marinzel said. Marinzel said the events of 9/11 didn't change the way the Secret Service operated either; it just made them work even harder. "One lasting thing from 9/11: Our hearts still go out to the victims and the families affected and every time we think of that, you have more resolve that you are going to do your job to the best of your ability," said Marinzel.